Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts ©

By

Michael Casey

We all like to have nice things, we save up for them, we are excited when we get them, it’s just nice. We may scrimp and save so that finally we can have a house, a home of our own. Then we make our home into a home, by adding our creature comforts.

One creature comfort may actually be nothing, because we no longer live at home with mum and dad so we no longer have to wear PJs. Mine always used to spit as I’m active when I’m asleep. I move about a lot, so my PJs always split.

So my creature comfort was being able to sleep in the nude, it’s much more relaxing being naked in bed. Ok I know half of you reading this have just had a really horrible picture put in your mind. That’s your own fault by having too good an imagination. In reality it’s like a gorilla in bed,  but even  hairier.

Moving swiftly on, nice Egyptian sheets from John Lewis also make the sleeping experience so much better. To top it all recently Aldi the discount shop had real duck feather pillows, these ARE the best pillows  I’ve had in my life. So my sleep experience is so good now.

There are other creature comforts, such as soft toilet paper, growing up we could not afford the softest, we even sometimes had to use old newspaper. At least you had something to read while you did your business.

We did have an outside toilet too until I was 10 I think, my eldest brother would have been at University. Dad always used to knock the yard light off, as it was wasting electricity. The same switch also switched off a 2^nd light inside the toilet itself. “Put the Light On” was shouted from the cold of the toilet. In winter we had a little oil lamp to heat the pipes so they would not freeze over.

Funny what you think of when you sit down to write something before bedtime. Slippers are a creature comfort too, at home we had lino up the stairs to the bedrooms. So at bedtime we used to split our legs so we could stand on the wood at the side and not the lino. Why? Because lino was so cold, absolutely freezing. We did not get central heating till I was 12 or 13.

This was the norm when we grew up, it was the same for everybody in the 1960s and 1970s.  Baked bread was a treat too, not the sliced variety. So we’d tear the crusts off and leave a lump of exposed and naked bread. Mum would rescue it and use it in soup another day. I still have our old metal bread bin, it’s under the sink in the kitchen behind me. An antique now.

Simple little things make us happy, like a few sweets bought on a Saturday at the market, or glazed ring donuts. Can you all remember those?  How about Madeira  cake all nice and yellow on a Sunday?

These are simple creature comforts, I did not expect to write this, I was going to be more consumer goods orientated, but as I just sat down this is what came out. I suppose it’s all the Love I’m remembering. A connection said just a few days ago that I made her cry because I had evoked a memory that reminded her of her own dad.

So if when I write this happens it’s the greatest thing I can possibly do. If I can steer everybody else  back to the Love they remember when they were young or memories of things past, then I think I’ve found my true vocation, my 3^rd wish granted from Padre Pio.